33. When Sardari Was Left in Charge of the Iranian Embassy in Paris, He Began Issuing Visas to Save Jews From the Nazis
When the Germans conquered Paris in 1940, Iran’s ambassador left for Vichy, where a collaborationist French government had set up shop. He left Sardari, by then promoted to Consul General, to look after the embassy’s affairs in Paris. At the time, there was a small Iranian and Central Asian Jewish community living in the city and the surrounding region.
In September 1940, the German occupation authorities ordered all Jews in France to register with the police. To save Iranian Jews, Sardari intervened to argue that they were not really Jews, but a different ethnic group. He told the Nazis, at some later point in history, a small number of Iranians began to find the teachings of the Prophet Moses attractive – and these Mousaique, or Iranian Followers of Moses, which he dubbed “Djuguten,” were not part of the Jewish race.
